Soin to expand again

The expansion project will open the fifth floor of the Beavercreek hospital, adding about 30 beds and additional therapy space.

BEAVERCREEK — Soin Medical Center is set to begin a $10 million expansion project next week, the hospital announced Wednesday. The project will add approximately 30 beds and additional therapy space to support the hospital’s joint, spine, hernia and cardiac programs.

The expansion will be completed by opening the fifth floor of the hospital, which was added but not completed or opened when the hospital was built in 2012. While some hospital infrastructure on the floor was put in place when the building was first constructed, it is currently little more than a shell waiting to be used.

The expansion comes as the hospital is currently running at near 80 percent capacity, according to Terry Burns, senior vice president of Soin Medical Center.

“It’s very difficult to run much above 80 percent, especially in a facility our current size, because in order to get to 80, you have these ebbs and flows that are between 70 and 100 percent,” he said. “Organizationally it’s very taxing to run above 80 percent.”

According to a release from Kettering Health Networking, the group which operates Soin, the build-out will create about 45 jobs, including registered nurses, nurse aids, therapists and support staff.

“This latest build-out reflects a continued increase in demand for medical surgical and therapy services,” Burns stated in a release. “Since the hospital opened, it has been our desire to provide comprehensive, advanced health care to our neighbors in Greene, western Clark, eastern Montgomery and Miami counties, and improve their quality of life. This latest project helps us do just that.”

This move will be the second of two planned expansions in the hospital’s upper floors. When the 70-bed, 276,000-square-foot hospital was built in 2012, two floors were shelled in anticipation of adding patient rooms. The hospital built out the shelled fourth floor in 2013, adding 32 beds to meet an increase in medical surgical services.

Project work is scheduled to begin June 10, and according to Burns, the floor will open in February of 2016, with the idea that, “We’re going to do everything we can to push earlier,” he said. Danis Building Construction will be responsible for the work.

Burns also announced that the hospital will be adding additional parking areas as well as part of the project.

Additionally, the hospital’s emergency department expansion, a project which began in the summer of 2014, is set for to open officially June 24.